The Best Way to Plan a Marketing Performance Management Process

The Best Way to Plan a Marketing Performance Management Process How do you get the most from your marketing team? The most productivity. The most team satisfaction. The most success overall, however you choose to define it. That’s all anyone managing a team wants, right? The answer starts with planning an effective performance management process. One that identifies your team’s goals, puts a plan in place to achieve them, and measures the results for future improvement. Putting that kind of plan into place isn’t a simple task. But, with this straightforward guide, you can put yourself and your team on the right path to be more productive. Now, this is a broad topic with lots of moving parts. In order to keep it digestible, practical, and actionable, this post will narrow down the steps you need to take to put an actual process into practice, without diving too deep into more theoretical aspects of management. Digestible, practical, and actionable intro into setting up a successful marketing performanceSnag Your Performance Management Checklist It’s easier to follow processes when you can break them down into a checklist. In fact, that’s something research supports. So, make implementing this process easier with a simple performance management checklist. When it comes time to evaluate marketing talent on your team, it’ll make it easier to know exactly what to look for, which questions to ask, and what to do next. What Does â€Å"Performance Management† Mean in Plain Language? In a marketing context, we can summarize this topic as such: Performance management is the intentional practice of ensuring every member of your marketing team meets individualized goals through thorough planning, monitoring, and commitment to continuous improvement. That’s it in as succinct terms as possible. What Does the Performance Management Process Look Like? Generally, this process moves in three phases: Planning: Setting goals, expectations, and a strategy moving forward. Execution: Acting to implement that strategy to meet desired goals up to expectations. Review: Periodically assessing progress toward goals and steps for improvement. Which Performance Management Tools Do Marketing Teams Need? Get the right tools for the job. For this particular task, here are some recommendations: : An all-in-one marketing management platform for keeping teams and projects organized. Use Team Tab to manage team performance, and Team Performance Reports to objectively measure real productivity. Excel: Much of what marketing teams would typically use Excel for team planning-wise can be achieved with . However, this remains a staple option that’s essentially free (in that it’s a paid product, but your company is probably already paying for it). Evernote: Useful for building checklists and storing documentation. Integrates seamlessly with . This covers the basics. What’s Needed for Success? Everything starts with setting the right goals. At a high level, it should achieve (at least) the following three things. Ensuring Everyone Does Their Best Work Ultimately, this is what it’s all about: getting the most from your team. Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses Everyone has both, and it’s important to understand where every team members lies in each area. Providing Constructive Feedback No one can improve without knowing where to focus their efforts. When constructive feedback is communicated clearly, you can set expectations on how things need to change before the next time you meet to talk about goals. Celebrate Wins It’s important to be transparent when communicating areas that need improvement. But, it’s also important to appreciate successes and make sure team members know when they’re doing well. That helps build positive momentum that leads to further success. Getting Started With Planning Excellence doesn’t happen by accident, it happens by choice, and it starts with solid planning. Start a Trial or Schedule a Demo This post will cover managing your team using . If you’re not a customer, consider starting a trial or scheduling a demo. Otherwise, you may need to substitute in other software to complete some of the following steps. Add Your Team Members to Next, add each team member into . This is easy to do quickly. Understanding the Team Now, there are some things that need to be made clear between management, HR, department leads, and team members. Each team member’s purpose. What is their actual role and value to your marketing team? This has likely been summarized in your job descriptions, but if they’re out of date or the team member has outgrown that definition, it may be time for a role switch or promotion. Responsibilities and priorities. What are the most important things this employee needs to get done? Performance expectations. In order to keep your team on track to meet its goals, what results does each team member need to produce? Recommended Reading: How To Lead A Cross-Functional Team Collaboration With 3 Proven Ways To Ease Cross-Functional Team Collaboration Determining Future Vision Set up a meeting with each team member to figure out where they’d like to go in the future (and to set performance goals accordingly).